Faith

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Jeremiah 1:8, 19 (Ampl.)Be not afraid of them [their faces], for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord…And they shall fight against you, but they shall not [finally] prevail against you, for I am with you, says the Lord, to deliver you.

Did you ever feel like you were experiencing more problems because of the Word? Did you ever feel as if the promises that God gave you were the very cause of the trial you were experiencing? Jeremiah felt “persuaded and deceived”. He felt as if God had talked him into believing something only to keep him from receiving it. Perhaps God has “persuaded” you to believe something from His Word and instead of moving forward and receiving it, you feel as if you are going farther away from the promise. You may wonder why God went through the trouble of persuading you only to let you down. You may feel deceived – you may feel like what God said in His Word is not the truth for your life. You may feel misinformed, mislead, and maybe even betrayed, but we have to understand that God cannot deceive us! Whatever He says will come to pass!

When God’s promises take time to come to pass that is when many give up and feel like they were deceived, but we must press on; we must take root in the Word. We must understand what is happening in our lives and what God is bringing to pass. If we can look past our trial to the end result, then we will be able to press past the pain of the trial through the power Christ has bestowed upon us.

If truth be told, I am sure everyone one of you knows what it means to feel what Jeremiah described as “persuaded and deceived”. Even though you know what it means you probably never shared this feeling. Many times we feel like a failure as a Christian if we have these feelings, but that is not true! We all have feelings and those feelings do not define us. We do not have to try to disguise our feelings. God is well aware of how we feel; why do we believe that we can deceive Him in regards to our feelings? We need to be honest with Him about our feelings if we are ever going to get past those feelings.

Many times the victory seems as elusive as finding the perfect diet; and because of this, we will hurt, we will doubt, and we will get angry – just to name a few! During this time we will experience a variety of feelings and it is important that we deal with all of them. Feeling as if God has deceived you is a feeling that you can try to bury but it will rear its ugly head repeatedly unless you come to terms with it. Too many times we decide that the feeling we are experiencing is just wrong instead of understanding that, wrong or not, it is a real feeling that must be addressed. Going in reverse is not something we will be overjoyed about so we need to accept the fact that we will have our ups and downs. No matter how we feel we must understand that the Word of God is the only way out of the situation we are in. Some days it may even feel painful to read a promise that is totally contrary to your situation at the time, but push past the pain. It will be worth it!

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